What is philosophical about the practice Philosophy for Children (P4C)? In this open access book, the authors offer a surprising answer to this question: a practitioner's contemplation of the potentiality to speak, or what can be called infancy. Although essential to the experience of language, this most basic and profound capacity is often taken for granted or simply instrumentalized for the educational purposes of developing critical, caring, or creative thinking skills in the name of democratic citizenship. Against this kind of instrumentalization, the authors' radical reconceptualization of P4C focuses on the experience of infancy that can take place through collective inquiry. The authors' Philosophy for Infancy (P4I) emerges as a non-instrumental educational practice that does not dictate what to say or how to say it but rather turns attention to the fact of speaking. Referencing critical theorist Giorgio Agamben's extensive work on the theme of infancy, the authors philosophically engage the core writings of Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp, foundational scholars in the P4C tradition, to rediscover this latent potentiality in the original P4C program that has yet to be developed. Not only does the book provide a new theoretical basis for appreciating what is philosophical in Lipman and Sharp's formulations of P4C, it also provides a unique elucidation of key concepts in Agamben's work-such as infancy, demand, rules, adventure, happiness, love, and anarchy-within a collective, educational practice. Throughout, the authors offer applications of P4I that will provide anchoring points to inspire educators to return to philosophical experimentation with language as a means without end. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Italian critical theorist Giorgio Agamben may be best known for his political writings concerning the curtailing of privacy rights in the wake of 9/11 and the status of prisoners of war and refugees. Yet, casting him primarily as a political theorist is misleading given his significant contributions to the fields of linguistics, literary theory, philosophy, aesthetics, and religious studies. This book provides the first ever comprehensive introduction to Agamben's work as it pertains to the field of education. Written in a clear and accessible style, Giorgio Agamben: Education without Ends is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in thinking education beyond its current standardized forms. The first part of the book creates a context by highlighting formative experiences in Agamben's biography that reflect a particular idea of education on the threshold between life and work. The second part introduces the notions of infancy, study, community, and happiness, and discusses their relevance with regard to key issues in educational theory and practice. The third part shows how conceptual constellations based on Agamben's work can inspire studious practices within the spatial, temporal, and curricular infrastructure of educational institutions as they exist today.

What is philosophical about the practice Philosophy for Children (P4C)? In this open access book, the authors offer a surprising answer to this question: a practitioner's contemplation of the potentiality to speak, or what can be called infancy. Although essential to the experience of language, this most basic and profound capacity is often taken for granted or simply instrumentalized for the educational purposes of developing critical, caring, or creative thinking skills in the name of democratic citizenship. Against this kind of instrumentalization, the authors' radical reconceptualization of P4C focuses on the experience of infancy that can take place through collective inquiry. The authors' Philosophy for Infancy (P4I) emerges as a non-instrumental educational practice that does not dictate what to say or how to say it but rather turns attention to the fact of speaking. Referencing critical theorist Giorgio Agamben's extensive work on the theme of infancy, the authors philosophically engage the core writings of Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp, foundational scholars in the P4C tradition, to rediscover this latent potentiality in the original P4C program that has yet to be developed. Not only does the book provide a new theoretical basis for appreciating what is philosophical in Lipman and Sharp's formulations of P4C, it also provides a unique elucidation of key concepts in Agamben's work-such as infancy, demand, rules, adventure, happiness, love, and anarchy-within a collective, educational practice. Throughout, the authors offer applications of P4I that will provide anchoring points to inspire educators to return to philosophical experimentation with language as a means without end. The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.